Iq Test Essays - Psychometrics, Intelligence, Educational Psychology

Iq Test The task of trying to quantify a persons intelligence has been a goal of psychologists since before the beginning of this century. The Binet-Simon scales were first proposed in 1905 in Paris, France and various sorts of tests have been evolving ever since. One of the important questions that always comes up regarding these tools is what are the tests really measuring? Are they measuring a persons intelligence? Their ability to perform well on standardized tests? Or just some arbitrary quantity of the persons IQ? When examining the situations around which these tests are given and the content of the tests themselves, it becomes apparent that however useful the tests may be for standardizing a groups intellectual ability, they are not a good indicator of intelligence. To issue a truly standardized test, the testing environment should be the same for everyone involved. If anything has been learned from the psychology of perception, it is clear that a persons environment has a great deal to do with their cognitive abilities. Is the light flickering? Is the paint on the walls an unsettling shade? Is the temperature too hot or too cold? Is the chair uncomfortable? Or in the worst case, do they have an illness that day? To test a persons mind, it is necessary to utilize their body in the process. If everyones body is placed in different conditions during the testing, how is it expected to get standardized results across all the subjects? Because of this assumption that everyone will perform equally independent of their environment, intelligence test scores are skewed and cannot be viewed as standardized, and definitely not as an example of a persons intelligence. It is obvious that a persons intelligence stems from a variety of traits. A few of these that are often tested are reading comprehension, vocabulary, and spatial relations. But this is not all that goes into it. What about physical intelligence, conversational intelligence, social intelligence, survival intelligence, and the slew of others that go into everyday life? Why are these important traits not figured into intelligence tests? Granted, normal standardized tests certainly get predictable results where academics are concerned, but they should not be considered good indicators of general intelligence because of the glaring omissions they make in the testing process. To really gauge a persons intelligence, it would be necessary to put them through a rigorous set of real-life trials and document their performance. Otherwise the standardized IQ tests of today are testing an extremely limited quality of a persons character that can hardly be referred to as intelligence. There are a few other common criticisms of modern IQ tests. They have no way to compensate for cultural differences. People use different methods to solve problems. Peoples reading strategies differ. Speed is not always the best way to tackle a problem. There is often too much emphasis placed on vocabulary. Each of these points warrants individual treatment, and for more information refer to The Triarchic Mind by RJ Sternberg (Penguin Books, 1988, p18-36). It is possible to classify all the reasons that IQ tests fail at their task into two main groups. The first grouping is where the tests assume too much. Examples of this flaw are the assumption that speed is always good, vocabulary is a good indicator of intelligence, and that different test taking environments wont affect the outcome. The second grouping comes because the tests gauge the wrong items. Examples of this are different culture groups being asked to take the same tests as everyone else, and the fact that the tests ignore so many types of intelligence (like physical, social, etc). These two groupings illustrate where the major failings of popular IQ tests occur and can be used as tools for judging others. IQ tests are not good indicators for a persons overall intelligence,but as their use has shown, they are extremely helpful in making predictions about how a person will perform in an academic setting. Perhaps the problem comes in the name intelligence tests when it is obvious this is not what they really are. The modern IQ test definitely has its applications in todays society but should be be used to quantify a persons overall intelligence by any means. Psychology

Pay Attention to the Email Subject

Pay Attention to the Email Subject Pay Attention to the Email Subject Pay Attention to the Email Subject By Michael The subject line is the most important part of your email. Its perhaps the source your readers use most to decide whether your message is spam or not. The other is the sender line, your own name and email address. If youre writing to a friend who recognizes your email address immediately (and are you sure they can, by the way?), then maybe you can get away with a subject line that says nothing, such as whats happening? or just a thought or hows it going? But spammers love to use those same meaningless subject lines. Anybody can, because they dont say what the email is about, and they allow spam to be mistaken as personal messages. So for important emails, avoid this sort of unprofessional subject line. Unless youre a spammer. Because you may get mistaken for one. Vague subject lines also make email hard to catalog and find later. Suppose your prospective business client does recognize your email address. Or, armed with the latest spyware and virus updates, your customer decides to take a chance on opening your message which you have cleverly titled Who knew? Suppose it has something important to say. I hope you had something important to say. When your customer rereads the subject lines, looking for the email containing the time and place where he was supposed to sign your $1.3 million contract, how in the world is your customer going to remember which email it was? Was it Who knew? or could it have been Update! Well, you didnt really need that $1.3 million anyway. Today, most email is spam, and your email subject line needs to authenticate your message as non-spam. Being specific and personal is the best way to do that. Put something in the subject line that a spammer couldnt guess: specific names or keywords that would interest your reader. And when you do that, you really are interesting your reader at the same time. Yes, detailed subject lines may seem less personal. But drastic times call for drastic measures. In a sea of spam, a clearly-written email subject line rises to the top like a message in a bottle that says Rescue me! Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Business Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Good At, Good In, and Good With"Wracking" or "Racking" Your Brain?150 Foreign Expressions to Inspire You

12 Rules for Punctuating Dialogue Like a BOSS

12 Rules for Punctuating Dialogue Like a BOSS How to Punctuate Dialogue: A Guide for Writers Do you use single or double quote marks for dialogue? Find out here. The rules of punctuating dialogue, whether in fiction or non-fiction, are tricksy little creatures. Despite our exposure to hundreds of thousands of dialogue lines, writers aren’t always familiar with how to punctuate a scene where characters are speaking to each other. But this, of course, is by design.With well-written dialogue,  readers shouldn’t notice the periods and quote marks. Their function is to make the words easier to read and disappear into the background. In this post, we’ll take you through the basics of how to punctuate dialogue. By the end, you can be sure that your dialogue never trips over its own commas ever again. Rule #1: Should you use double or single quotation marks?In American English, direct speech is normally represented with double quotation marks:â€Å"It’s time to pay the piper.†You might see British editors occasionally place a period (or full stop, as they say) outside the quote marks. But in those cases, it is not used for spoken dialogue but for quoting "sentence fragments", or perhaps when styling the title of a short story like "The Gift of the Magi". If you have any thoughts or questions, leave a message in the comments below.

U05a1 Case Analysis Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

U05a1 Analysis - Case Study Example As early as in 1985, the possibility of a great disaster in case of an explosion inside the tunnel was pointed out by ‘The Baltimore Sun’. However, nothing was done to ensure safety in case of such a disaster. The city’s 440 page emergency plan contained no provision to meet such an eventuality. The event On 18 July 2001, a freight train of CSX that was carrying various items from paper, plywood, soy oil, and many chemicals derailed inside the tunnel. As a result of derailing, there was fire and smoke. The crew of the train could not contact authorities and hence, they uncoupled the first three locomotives and drove out of the tunnel. Soon, thick smoke started covering the city. The fire department was getting calls from different parts of the city reporting smoke. The waybill from the train crew revealed that the train carried hazardous materials like hydrochloric acid, flurocilicic acid, tripopylene, glacial acetic acid, ethyl hexyl phthalate, and propylene glyc ol. While some of these were combustible, others could create breathing problems and skin burns. A possibility of ‘boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE) could not be ruled out, which could mean total destruction of the city. In addition, the fire officials were not at all familiar with handling those chemicals. As it is rightly said in Penuel, Statler, and Golson (2011, p.89), decisions during a crisis are to be taken in an environment where issues are wrongly defined and data is erroneous. The management of the situation It seems that the fire department proceeded well in accordance with the stipulated procedures. As the city’s emergency plan did not provide any guidelines, it was for the first responder- the fire department- to take the lead. As per the stipulated incident command procedure, the senior officer of the first unit on the scene is responsible to assess the situation, and, depending on the seriousness of the situation, to report upwards. Exactly in the same way, the matter was reported to Chief Heinbuch, and soon he started the command post near the north end of the tunnel. This step too seems well in accordance with the suggested procedures in case of an emergency. Soon, Heinbuch took charge of the situation, and set up the command post near the north end of the tunnel. At this juncture, it is worth remembering that this step too is well in accordance with the stipulation that an incident command post will be established within close proximity to incident response operations. (Penuel et al., 2011, p. 89). The next positive point to note from the case is the cooperation between the fire department and the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE). According to the reports, both the departments worked and trained together, and hence, communication and cooperation were instantaneous. It seems that there was an averagely effective management of the situation. It seems that the team was able to establish link with a number of o ther groups ranging from MDE, public health, public works department, and the department of transportation, US Coast Guard, the EPA, and the National Transportation Safety Board. Still, there was serious lack of communication among groups that could lead to loss of lives. An example is the effort by DPW crews on 19 July to excavate the water

Use of English Language Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 5

Use of English Language - Essay Example On the other hand, non-verbal surpasses verbal communication, given that people depend on non-verbal for expressing their ideas since when they are born. In this case, due to innate attributes of non-verbal behaviors, this leads to its significance in communication. For instance, some people use body gestures and facial expressions before uttering sentences, whereby they try making sense through symbolic messages. Furthermore, non-verbal cues are considered trustable they are elicited unconsciously by people through their behaviors. Moreover, there is the notion that non-verbal cues are not delusional; in fact, member of this community have a conviction that non-verbal messages are applicable where verbal messages are contradicting. In this case, people focus on creating the meaning of their non-verbal behaviors through attachment of meaning by observing what others are doing. Therefore, symbolic messages assist people in interpreting intentions of the speaker, and this is an indicat ion of the significance of non-verbal communication in the process of interpretation. In this case, non-verbal communications are considered very helpful in a situation whereby people do not understand messages communicated by a person through verbal communication. In addition, there is the deprivation of an interpreter to fall back on other ways of facilitating understanding of the speaker. In this situation, the non-verbal communication is utilized to offer subtle hints regarding the way a message should be understood.... In this case, people should avoid using gendered adjectives that are considered irrelevant such as â€Å"lady doctor†, â€Å"male nurse,† or â€Å"woman lawyer†. Issues of exclusion through language use involve explicit gender dichotomies, which are involved in social and linguistic awareness of speakers. In fact, this depends on whether there are social implications of gender non-stereotypical linguistic terminologies. Nevertheless, in order to identify this exclusion, there is need to analyze and pay attention on the stereotypical gender binarities, which are associated with social awareness and linguistic. For instance, there are divergent cultures and languages presented as indicative can lead to gender polarization, which is reflected in global and local trends of perception towards language. There are complex interdependencies, which exist between gender and languages can be explored in regard to theories associated with language and gender interplay; for i nstance, there are social cognitive approaches and social constructionism (Wolfgang, 23). Therefore, gender stereotypes are considered inherent based on the perception and application of language. Nonetheless, language and gender stereotypes may be assumed, while the discussion is based on the conceptualization of languages and gender, thereby referring to impact of gender stereotypes on language perceptions. Interesting Event Involving Language within the Community One of the most interesting events involving language within a community involves a special public or semi-public event, where an organization seeks to develop a sense of â€Å"political correctness†. In fact, this event starts with a short opening speech and

Mac vs Pc Essay Example for Free

Mac vs Pc Essay Americans have always had a choice when it comes to computers, but choose wisely not all computers are made the same. Mac and PC rivalry is on the same level as Pepsi vs. Coke. In today’s world, owning a computer is an essential part of life. Although there are numerous types of computers that you could own, there are two main types to consider, A Personal computer or MAC. Everyone has his or her own opinion on which is better. And there are many die-hard fans in each category. You either like it or love it. A lot of people choose personal computers because of how different Mac computers. Firstly we will consider software availability. The majority of computer users own personal computers, both for work and recreational use. Therefore, software companies find that it is far more profitable to develop software that is for use on a PC instead of a Mac You should choose your computer by doing your research and seeing what type of computer fits your life style and your family’s needs. Mac computers have been stereotyped as they type of computer that would be used by Artist and unemployed writers. Macs were not so popular with other people of the world. Now the Mac Company seems to be the fourth largest manufacturer in the world. The prices of Mac computers are a little higher. They range from $1,199.99 to $1,999.99. The price all depends on what size monitor and GB you decide on. Macs come with an Intel core i5 processor with 4 to 500 GB hard drives. They have built in internal speakers and web cam. For photos Mac computers use what is called I Photo. This is where you upload your pictures and have the ability to make picture folders and give them names. Example, (our wedding night). They have a feature call Front row, where you can view trailers of all the upcoming movies that will be coming out in theaters. This feature automatically updates its self, to keep you updated on the newest movies. Instead of a restore center Macs have a feature called the time machine, where you can literally go back in time to a time and place you were on your computer. Unlike Regular personal computers make has just one Large screen that has everything built into it. There is no computer tower, which is kind of nice. Everything you need is right on your computer monitor. You C.D drive are located on the side of the monitor and the USB imports are located in the back along with the on/off button. PC computers were also another stereotype. Many would say this would be they type of computer used by people who loved video games, video chatting, music mash-ups and other cool things. Pc computers were always the choice for people in America. And they definitely seem to be the cheaper choice of the two. PC computers range from about $400 to $800 and that includes a monitor and the tower. And in some cases the package deal comes with a printer. PC computers come with a 3 to 6 GB of memory. With PC computers you usually have to purchase speakers and web cams separately with could cost you between $ 30 and $40. PC computers have a photo gallery where you can up load your pictures to share with family and friends. They also have a backup database so you don’t lose any of your data. Personal computers come with a computer monitor and a tower. The tower is where one would put the C.D ROMs and plug in USB cables. All in all, I found that Mac computers are the most expensive computers. They are well worth the money. I recently bought a Mac computer and I love all the features that come with it. I love the build in web cam. This makes it easier to Skype with my sister, who is away at college. Finding the right computer takes time and effort. Take the time to research computers and find the right one for you.

Custom Essay - Sexuality and Sexual Intercourse in A Midsummer Nights D

Sexuality and Sexual Intercourse in A Midsummer Nights Dream On the surface, Shakespeare’s play A Mid Summer Nights Dream is simply a comedic romp concerning love. A close examination of the actions and words of each of the players will reveal that the primary focus of the play is not really love but rather sexuality and sexual intercourse.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hippolyta's nightlife role as Titania is stage-managed by Theseus-Oberon, who gets his will by magical means.   if his own imperial gaze has proved ineffectual, he will capture Titania's gaze and refocus it with an aimlessness that would have gratified Cupid:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The next thing then she waking looks upon,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Be it lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Or meddling monkey, or on busy ape,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   She shall pursue it with the soul of love.    This prepares the way not only for an arousal of 'animal love' in Titania but for its consummation in her bower.   The supposed ravishment of Bottom would have to happen offstage, primarily because that is the only place it could have happened.   Titania's bower is not the same as the flower-canopied bank 'where the wild thyme blows' and where according to Oberon, 'sleeps Titania sometime in the night'.   If it were the same, then it is especially easy to believe that no sexual act occurs between the Queen and the Ass.   If such an act should occur, it must be believed that her bower is really in fairyland, which is distant from the wood, and that it is there where Bottom is taken and there where he is ravished.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   As for the theater, a Titania-jumping Bottom, or a Bottom-jumping Titania, is hardly what Shakespeare could have meant for ... ...f the sadism Hermia's dream attributes to Lysander, and since this is also Hippolyta's 'dream', it represents her anxieties about a Theseus who won her love by doing her injuries.   Oberon not only sees Titania's disgrace, but feels it, and by doing so breaks his charm.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Unpleasant as Oberon's methods are, we can only judge them by Titania's response. When she wakes up, she is not bitter, but quick to love, 'My Oberon!'.   And, to obey, when he asks for music she immediately cries, 'Music, ho!   Music, such as charmeth sleep!' Works Cited and Consulted Berry, Ralph. Shakespeare’s Comedies. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972. Greenblatt et al., ed. â€Å"A Midsumer Night’s Dream.†The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1997. Vaughn, Jack A. Shakespeare’s Comedies. New York: Frederick Uncar Publishing Co., 1980.

Letter of rejection

Your letter has been received on February 22 and we know your concern about the repeated card swipes happened on January 25. Please allow me to explain that the transaction reference number, 144022-22839837109, changes daily so that multiple purchases made on the same day often carry the same number. More Importantly, although the transaction reference numbers are the same, the debits are for different amounts: $268. 00; $219. 60; $116. 20. Therefore, these transactions were not a result of repeated card swipes.Besides, policy of HASH requires that customers having problems on the statements to write a claim letter to the ATM Error Department and enclose the receipts within 10 to 20 business days. So we kindly remind you that your request has already exceeded the time limit and no receipts are enclosed. Another thing we want to mention Is that we contacted manager of Cluster, Mr.. William Wong, to ask for more detailed Information. He told us there Is no problem with the equipment.An d Mr.. Wong also mentioned that food shoppers commonly returned at different times during the day to make additional purchase they forgot the first. Based on all the reasons we have mentioned above, we cannot approve your request for adjustment. Thank you for your understanding. We welcome you to vials our website http://YMMV. Hash. Com. Hawk/l/2/home to know more details about the other Nanking services and we anticipate serving your needs In the future.Yours sincerely, ATM Error Resolution Department letter of rejection By Legislating purchases made on the same day often carry the same number. More importantly, Another thing we want to mention is that we contacted manager of Cityscape, Mr.. William Wong, to ask for more detailed information. He told us there is no problem for adjustment. Thank you for your understanding. We welcome you to visit our website http://www. Hash. Com. Hawk/l/2/home to know more details about the other banking services and we anticipate serving your need s in the future.

O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” Essay

I chose to write a comparison essay on Flannery O’Connor’s â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† and William Faulkner’s â€Å"Barn Burning†. Both of these stories share central characters with similar personalities as well as similar themes and conflicts through the stories. The Grandmother, in â€Å"A Good Man Is Hard to Find†, is an old woman with old-fashioned ideas and manners. She considers herself to be a good person, but she is also very selfish and manipulative. She makes up lies to get what she wants, such as when she tells the children about a secret panel in the plantation house that she wants to visit just to intrigue them into wanting to stop there. She tries to come across as an honest and holy religious woman, when in actuality, she is just the opposite. She uses the term â€Å"good man† quite loosely whenever she wants to please a man. Sarti’s father Abner, in â€Å"Barn Burning†, also posses the same two character flaws as the Grandmother, selfishness and manipulativeness. He uses his authority as an adult and as a father to put guilt trips on Sarti. He tells him that no matter what, he should never go against his own blood because blood is thicker than water. Another similarity in the two characters is that they are both responsible for the actions that take place throughout the stories. The Grandmother is constantly trying to direct the family’s vacation and tell them what to do. She feels that she knows best because she is old and wise. This is ironic because listening to the Grandmother is what gets the family into the predicament in the end. Because she insists on visiting the old plantation house, the family winds up getting lost. Because she sneaks her cat along for the trip, Bailey get startled which causes the family to get into a car accident. All of this leads up to the family meeting up with Misfit and his two accomplices, which in turn, causes the death of all five people. Abner, like the Grandmother, can not accept the fact that most of his actions caused his problems. He also feels that he knows it all and does not think of the future consequences of his actions. He feels no remorse in telling Sarti to lie for him because he feels that what he did was justified. Both â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† and â€Å"Barn Burning† involve the theme of a conflict between youth versus age. The Grandmother and Abner both have authority over the other characters because of their age. In â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find†, the characters disregard the Grandmother in the beginning when she says that she will not take her family to Florida because of the murderer who is loose there. But they do make the decision to listen to her when it comes turning around and looking for the plantation house, which turns out to be a fatal decision. In â€Å"Barn Burning†, Sarti starts off obeying his father, but then makes the fatal decision to turn him in. The small difference in these stories is that the family’s decision affects each one of them to where the outcome is the same for all, death. While Sarti’s decision does change his life and the course that it would take, it only causes death for his father. In conclusion, Flannery O’Connor’s â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† and William Faulkner’s â€Å"Barn Burning† are both stories that involve a central character whose actions seal the fate of all the other characters. They both have similar traits and views. Most importantly, neither of the two characters will ever openly accept responsibility for what happens, although they may feel it inside. Both short stories also involve a similar theme of choices. The characters make their choices of whether or not to do what the Grandmother and Abner say, according to what they feel is the right thing to do. Even though the Grandmother from â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† and Abner from â€Å"Barn Burning† are extremely different people in very many ways, they are also quite similar.

Defining Programming Language

Defining Programming Language A programming language is used to write computer  programs including applications, utilities, and systems programs. Before the Java and C# programming languages appeared, computer programs were either compiled or interpreted.   A compiled program is written as a series of humanly understandable computer instructions that can be read by a  compiler  and  linker  and translated into  machine code  so that a computer can understand and run it. Fortran, Pascal, Assembly Language, C, and C programming languages are almost always compiled in this way. Other programs, such as Basic, JavaScript, and VBScript, are interpreted. The differences between compiled and interpreted languages  can be confusing. Compiling a Program The development of a compiled program follows these basic steps: Write or edit the programCompile the program into machine code files that are specific to the target machineLink the machine code files into a runnable program (known as an EXE file)Debug or run the program Interpreting a Program Interpreting a program is a much faster process thats helpful for novice programmers when editing and testing their code. These programs run slower than compiled programs. The steps to interpret a program are: Write or edit the programDebug or run the program using an interpreter program Java and C# Both Java and C# are semi-compiled.  Compiling Java generates bytecode that is later interpreted by a Java virtual machine. As a result, the code is compiled in a two-stage process.   C# is compiled into Common Intermediate Language, which is then run by the Common Language Runtime part of the .NET framework, an environment that supports just-in-time compilation. The speed of C# and Java is almost as fast as  a true compiled language. As far as speed goes, C, C, and C# all are sufficiently speedy for games and operating systems. Programs on a Computer From the moment you turn on your computer, it is running programs, carrying out instructions, testing  RAM and accessing the operating system on its drive. Each and every operation that your computer performs has instructions that someone had to write in a programming language. For example, the Windows 10 operating system has roughly 50 million lines of code. These had to be created, compiled and tested; a long and complex task. Programming Languages Now In Use Top programming languages for PCs are Java and C with C# close behind and C holding its own. Apple products use Objective-C and Swift programming languages. There are hundreds of small programming languages out there, but other popular programming languages include: PythonPHPPerlRubyGoRustScala There have been many attempts to automate the process of writing and testing programming languages by having computers write computer programs, but the complexity is such that, for now, humans still write and test computer programs. The Future for Programming Languages Computer programmers tend to use programming languages they know. As a result, the old tried-and-true languages have hung around for a long time. With the popularity of mobile devices, developers may be more open to learning new programming languages. Apple developed Swift to eventually replace Objective-C, and Google developed Go to be more efficient than C. Adoption of these new programs has been slow, but steady.

3 Valuable Pieces of Information Harvards MCC Gives Adcoms

In 2015, Richard Weissbourg, a senior lecturer at Harvard, conducted a survey of 10,000 middle and high school students, from which he concluded that today’s college applicants were more preoccupied with their own happiness and achievement than the well-being of others. He postulated that this obsessive, tunnel-vision pursuit of personal achievement may ultimately result in more stressed out and unhappy individuals in the long run. To remedy this issue, Weissbourg proposed a new admissions protocol that seeks to change the criteria by which colleges evaluate their prospective applicants – specifically, he wanted colleges to give equal weight to an applicant’s character as well as their academic achievement. This protocol, titled Making Caring Common (MCC) , has been endorsed by representatives from over 80 of the top colleges in the nation. Previously, we’ve summarized the overarching goals of MCC and explored its tenets from various perspectives . Today, we’ll take a look at MCC from an admissions council’s point of view, and how the new admissions structure under MCC can offer these admissions officers new insights into an applicant’s background. With the way that many college applications are structured today, it’s often difficult to infer what an applicant is like in their day-to-day lives. Applications do ask for extracurriculars and essays , but there’s only so much those can do towards getting to know the kind of person the applicant is when they’re not trying to impress admissions councils. One of the goals that MCC has outlined for colleges is to create a more in-depth application that aims to obtain a more candid, three-dimensional, and dynamic image of a prospective applicant. More specifically, according to MCC’s official report, colleges should aim to assess applicants’ â€Å" daily awareness of and contributions to others .† In the report, Weissbourg and his colleagues propose that colleges should implement this directive by reshaping their essay questions — questions that too often focus only on the applicant’s academic repertoire. MCC suggests that colleges include more essay questions that ask applicants to â€Å" reflect broadly on how they contribute to others and on what values guide their lives ,† in a more moral and ethical sense. The report also asks counselors, teachers, and recommenders to reflect more on their everyday interactions with a prospective applicant and to justify their positive claims about an applicant based on observable, consistent actions. Future recommendations might also have a selection section where recommenders are instructed to pick a preset number of adjectives that describe an applicant; some adjectives will be academically positive, while others are ethically positive. Whether or not ethically positive terms are chosen for an applicant will indicate to admissions councils the relative value of ethics to that applicant. All these techniques combined serve to build a facet of a college application expressly dedicated to evaluating not just how moral an applicant is, but also how consistent the applicant is about living out those values. Perseverance and a Willingness to Learn One of the keywords emphasized in MCC’s report is the word â€Å"sustained,† and for good reason too — colleges have witnessed a trend of applicants engaging in extracurriculars for short periods of time to pad out their resume and then giving them up. The report also points out that partaking in an excessive number of extracurriculars can also cause undue stress and emotional pressure in applicants, and that oftentimes, applicants from less privileged backgrounds are at a disadvantage in the admissions process because their schools don’t offer the wide range of extracurriculars available at wealthier schools. To address all three of these issues, MCC stresses an emphasis on the quality of extracurriculars over the quantity — namely, they recommend that an applicant should only need to list two or three extracurriculars on their application, but that these extracurriculars must be extracurriculars that the applicant has clearly dedicated himself or herself to. When addressing the issue of community service extracurriculars, for example, the MCC report states that a high-quality community service experience should be â€Å" consistent, well-structured and sustained, and provid opportunity for reflection both individually and with peers and adults. † The reasoning behind this is that MCC wishes to see applicants who have been intrinsically transformed by their extracurriculars, either in the way they think or the way they feel about the world. They hope that the extracurriculars that an applicant chooses will have â€Å"engaged students’ concerns and intellect and developed in them important awareness of and commitment to others and the public good.† And in order to feasibly reach such a profound realization within an extracurricular, the report presumes that applicants must have dedicated a significant amount of time and energy to it. This shift from quantity and ostensible value or competitiveness to intrinsic personal development in the evaluation of extracurriculars rewards students who have truly dedicated themselves to the same causes for significant portions of their lives — it portrays these applicants as people with a genuine interest that they are willing to commit to, and who are constantly reevaluating their worldview and bettering themselves through their experiences. Colleges typically encourage a diverse campus with students from various racial and cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic origins, political orientations, and the like. However, the MCC report duly notes that many diversity initiatives that college applicants partake in are surface-level and tokenistic, and do not help in actually facilitating exchange between students of different backgrounds. In order to encourage deeper understandings of diversity, the report suggests that colleges ask about diversity in terms of the changes that interactions with diversity have engendered in an applicant. After interacting with people of diverse backgrounds, have applicants become more understanding? Have they realized a better way to do things from people of a different background? Have they become an advocate or an ally? Most importantly, MCC proposes that applicants who do take part in diversity initiatives do so on equal footing with the demographic that they are interacting with — from the report itself, it says that an applicant should not be â€Å"doing for† people with different backgrounds, and that he or she should instead â€Å"do with,† interacting with people of different backgrounds on their terms and integrating into their daily lives instead of the other way around. These new evaluations of diversity participation discourages the type of superficial and patronizing understanding of different backgrounds that comes from when an applicant simply glosses over the traits of people from a different background on the applicant’s own terms. Instead, it forces applicants to immerse themselves in a different background and experience the world from the perspective of that different background, and rewards those who are able to accept people apart from themselves as equals. Though MCC preserves much of the academic evaluation structure of the current application system (with a few exceptions), the provisions it proposes for a remodeling of the current system are geared towards character building and self-development — two traits that the report states have been neglected in the race for acceptance into top colleges. Once parents, students, teachers, and admissions officers re-focus their efforts towards developing better people instead of just better students, Weissbourg suggests, we’ll begin seeing a rise in happier, more fulfilled, and more complete individuals.

Business Process Management in Hospitality Case Study

Business Process Management in Hospitality - Case Study Example Configuration is defined as "making choices about what a company will do and how it will do it, andensuring that the things a company does reinforce each other". They argue that the lack of a focused competitive strategy is one of the key causes of poor organisational configuration. However, the problem of organisational configuration is not just restricted to understanding markets, with poor configuration being found in a number of key areas, including hospitality SMEs' relationships with their customers, which are fraught with uncertainty. There is an acknowledged advantage in that small firms are closer to the customer, enabling more personal relationships to develop (Crook , 2003). However, this is tempered by the danger that having a limited customer base (Gray, 2005) facilitates the development of deferential supplier-customer relationships. Research by Harrison (2003) concludes that, apart from those firms which operate only in very low profit or niche markets, hospitality SMEs are consistently found to be subservient to their larger counterparts. This view is supported by Wong (2005) who suggest that hospitality SMEs have a lack of control over their futures because of demands made by stronger customers throughout the supply chain. An additional burden is a lack of power to leverage payment of debts from these customers, as noted by (Okumus, 2003), who point out that many smaller firms are "afraid to press customers too hard for payment for fear of loss of future business". It is this scenario which most severely affects hospitality SMEs as their limited resources cannot cope with the fluctuations in cash flow that late payment inevitably brings. The overall effect of the fiercely competitive environment in which hospitality SMEs operate is that, very often, strategic planning becomes a seemingly pointless exercise, again lowering competitive advantage through poor organisational configuration. Tangen (2004) points out that unless the internal structures and the external competitive environment of the hospitality SME are effectively aligned with its strategy, it is unlikely that it will ever be implemented successfully. The difficulties associated with aligning strategy to the external competitive environment led ( Harrison, 2003) to conclude that the majority of hospitality SMEs in the automotive sector are not concerned about future strategic developments, as survival in the supply chain requires them only to maintain a reactive strategy. In addition, McAdam (2004) found that it is not unusual for firms to retain the original strategy developed by the founder, thereby leading to a "strategic hangover", which, if the competi tive environment or the company structure has changed, may actually be detrimental to future business success. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that many established hospitality SMEs rely solely on internal or financial planning as their main approach to preparing for the future (Crook, 2003). This might be due to the fact that accountancy information has been shown to be the most important factor in determining survival or